The war ideals that were nurtured in Iron-Age society encouraged the growing numbers of young men who were not strictly necessary to the survival of their families to seek wealth and honour in armies and on expeditions, or to take land abroad. Many aspects of Viking-Age society revolved around this warrior life, cementing a patriarchal social order. The warrior’s duty was to fight for his chief, who in turn was expected to reward his retinue generously. Rewards included part of the booty taken in battle or as ransom, but also generous hospitality at large banquets.
The Viking Age was built on an old political culture that had existed at least since Homer’s Greece and the Celtic tribes of central Europe. A pivotal institution was the feast in the chieftain’s hall, where fighters drank together and were generously fed. Their privileges came with equally clear obligations. This is apparent from various peace treaties, where the men of a defeated group were killed while the women were spared to be taken away as slaves.
This side of warrior life is reflected in skaldic praise poetry, but also in the enormous wooden buildings that have been excavated at Lejre and Tissø on Sjælland, for example. Such halls were associated with the centres of cults, and huge heaps of stone used for cooking and brewing were found nearby. The pagan cult was an integral part of great feasts and gatherings. Here women played a central role as hosts, and in the animal sacrifices that were made – the blót. A woman carrying a large drinking horn and female figures in ritual dress ready to take part in sacrificial rituals are frequent motifs in Viking art.
On this dress ornament found at Tissø on Sjælland, two figures in women’s clothes are seen standing around a horse. Both wear intricate headgear reminiscent of Iron-Age helmets. The figure on the left holds a spear over the horse’s back, while in the other hand she carries a large knife. The figure to the right holds a vessel in front of the horse. The scene probably shows a sacrificial ritual. Photo: Roberto Fortuna og Kira Ursem, National Musem of Denmark
In myths, rituals and daily practices, men and women confirmed their rightful place in society and their family with regard to gender, rank and work. As in most societies, rank could trump the other categories: the women of the elite could probably step beyond their gendered roles, as occasional finds of women’s graves with weaponry suggest. For women, however, the warrior’s role was not a fixed moral obligation like it was for men, who were expected to be prepared to face battle for the sake of their families or leaders.
Although the monarchy in Viking-Age Denmark rested on a minimal political apparatus, society was far from anarchical. Relations were regulated by inherited customary laws exercised by a people’s assembly, known as the thing, to which all free men (but generally not women) in principle had access. A thing could be assembled from a local area or from a region, if matters so required. Specific meeting places for assemblies from the Viking Age are not known in Denmark, but from the twelfth century at the latest Viborg, Ringsted and Lund were the gathering places for the assemblies of the three main provinces: Jutland, Sjælland and Skåne.
There were probably fixed days when the thing met, as was the case later in the Middle Ages. The assembly was at once a political and a legal institution. Far into the Middle Ages, it was the provincial assemblies that approved royal elections. In practice, however, the assembly was first and foremost a court for settling disputes. Appointed judges could impose fines or penalties for wrongdoing and crime. Particularly difficult cases could ultimately be submitted to the king for judgement.
It is unclear exactly what powers the Danish kings of the Viking Age enjoyed. It is likely that not all the privileges enjoyed by medieval kings were available to them. They did not receive regular taxes, nor did they maintain a regular coinage system until the end of the period, nor did they have a standing army. When a king like Sven Forkbeard called for an expedition, the forces were probably gathered by chieftains who had individually sworn allegiance to him and brought their warrior entourages with them. The king was, however, a military leader, with the power to call on warriors for defence and an entitlement to dues and hospitality – to be entertained with his entourage on travels. The kings undoubtedly also personally possessed large estates.
Below the kings, there was a wide variety of designations for men of status. Runic inscriptions mention titles such as dreng (‘warrior’), thegn (‘respectable landowner’), landmanna and bryde (both of which may mean ‘estate manager’). A few inscriptions refer to felagi, men who were business, travel or warrior companions. A special title is gode, found on some ninth-century inscriptions. In Denmark this denoted a cult leader, and as such was a position of honour. There are no traces of actual offices delegated from the monarchy. The men who raised the rune stones mentioned their family or immediate superiors.
From the beginning of the Viking Age, it is clear from many sources that Christians outside Denmark regarded the Danes as a pagan people. What the Danes themselves believed is less clear. Christian missionaries were sometimes accepted, as when Ansgar visited Hedeby and Ribe in the mid-ninth century and was allowed to build churches there. And there are accounts of many Scandinavians who were baptised on voyages abroad. In the contemporary account of Harald Bluetooth’s conversion in Widukind’s chronicle, it was stated that the Danes claimed that Christ was a God, but that there were other gods greater than he.
Icelandic sources written in the thirteenth century tell us most of what we know about Nordic pagan gods and myths. Some of the names, and a few of the myths, can be found in inscriptions, place names and images from Viking-Age Denmark. But unlike Christianity, the pre-Christian Scandinavian religion did not have a sacred text establishing a true faith. Many aspects of the faith may have been different from what was later remembered in Christian times in Iceland.
Christianity was a cultural and religious factor in Denmark throughout the Viking Age, alongside Nordic mythology. When Harald Bluetooth adopted Christianity in the 960s, there is nothing to suggest that this immediately led to a strictly ordered church organisation. Even in Cnut the Great’s time, there was no clear division into church provinces, and the Catholic Church’s hierarchy was ignored. But individual churches were generously supported at this time; Drotten Church in Lund was apparently built in stone in Cnut’s time. Only under Sven Estridsen was Denmark divided into dioceses, with clear reference to the archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen. The transition to Christian culture was a serious matter, but a gradual process.
Another cultural feature that clarified the interaction between the old and the new religion was the justifiably famous visual culture of the Viking Age. In the preceding centuries, variants of animal ornamentation had been used across northern Europe, from the Alpine region to Ireland and Norway’s North Cape. From the time of the migrations, this was a cultural marker among Germanic peoples. The intertwined animal motifs were applied to metal objects, illuminated manuscripts and wood carvings. They almost certainly encoded close layers of meaning which are barely understood today, but visually this ornamentation reflected an organic context corresponding to the notions of man and the cosmos that characterised pre-Christian myths.
In the Christian kingdoms of western and central Europe, animal ornamentation was gradually abandoned from the late eighth century in favour of floral patterns and other motifs inspired by Late Antique art. In Scandinavia, on the other hand, it was developed further at exactly the same time in the ‘gripping beast’ motif, which highlighted animal images to a greater extent than before. Scandinavian jewellery, among other things, was thus given a visual identity that was immediately recognisable and clearly differed from the art of Christian countries. Successive variants of the animal style became one of the Scandinavian markers throughout the Viking Age, including in the new settlements to the east, west and north.
It is interesting that Harald Bluetooth, after his conversion, used an animal motif with clear roots in this ornamental tradition on the Jelling stone. Over the next hundred and fifty years, variants of this animal image – a large animal entwined with a snake – were important motifs in Scandinavian decorative art, including the famous carvings in Urnes Stave Church, Norway. The motif was also seen on hundreds of brooches in Denmark from the mid-eleventh to the early twelfth century. Long after the Viking Age, in the 1130s, this Urnes style was used in conjunction with Romanesque church art, for example in the golden altar of Lisbjerg Church.
This brooch, found at Lindholm Høje, in north Jutland, was made in the Urnes style, in use from the Late Viking Age to the first half of the twelfth century. The motif of a large animal entwined with a snake was derived from the Jelling stone, following a tradition in use in Scandinavia since the Great Migration Period. In this way, visual expression married the new religion together with the old traditions. Photo: Nordjyske Museer
The animal style, with its roots in a pagan worldview, thus continued for centuries, and across the conversion to Christianity. It aptly sums up the gradual, but nonetheless profound cultural and religious transformation which Denmark underwent during the Viking Age.
The Viking Age (c. 790–1050) provides the earliest written record of political events and structures in Denmark. From the early ninth century, the country was frequently mentioned in continental and Anglo-Saxon written sources as a geographical and political entity. It was at times headed by one or more kings, and was sometimes plunged into war as candidates competed for the throne. Yet Danish kings could gather together considerable military power for defence or for naval attack. Their representatives were accepted by foreign rulers as negotiators in peace or trade agreements. Frankish emperors spent considerable resources and attention on seeking power and influence through military confrontation, espionage, missionaries and support for contenders for the Danish throne. Yet Frankish influence was kept at bay, and the threat of foreign overlordship repeatedly served to rally political support or opposition to kings. Nothing in the sources suggests that the Danish kingdom was a new political entity at the time when the number of extant records increases around 800, and the political institutions of the kingdom did not evolve much during the ninth and tenth centuries. Kings were leaders in war, ceremony and political dealings. With the exception of Harald Bluetooth’s short-lived attempt to organise national fortifications, coinage and possibly a tax system, it was only after 1050 that Danish kings controlled new instruments of power such as mints and church administration. This political system endured in the face of major cultural changes, such as the adoption of Christianity. It was rooted in the power structures of a warrior society, and thrived on the opportunities for the elite to plunder abroad that prevailed during much of the Viking Age. As these opportunities declined in the eleventh century, the crown, facing still more organised opponents, transformed itself through a new alliance with church institutions and with the growing power of a landowning aristocracy.